All it took was a prosthetic leg and suddenly Disco is Jesus now? Oh, get a grip, middle-aged chubby ladies.

THE LOFT, NEW YORK -- Yeah, you heard me everybody. Disco has returned from the grave.

But wait, it gets worse.

Disco is not even in critical condition, or writhing on the ground with every bone broken, or buried alive in a flaming coffin. Disco is barely even bleeding. Disco is doing very well, and is even expected to nearly make a full recovery. How did we get here? Disco should be dead. Disco shouldn't be making any recovery at all.

How did this happen? Didn't we burn all of those copies of I Will Survive and laugh maniacally at the irony? Didn't we organize all those protests and force movie theaters to screen Saturday Night Fever at Sunday matinées only? Didn't we blackmail Donna Summer into only touring during autumn, headlining with Edgar Winter, and performing Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring? Disco should be dead! Didn't we kill Barry White? If disco wasn't dead before, shouldn't it have definitely died then? He wasn't even that disco but we killed him anyway, didn't we?

It boggles the mind. It boggles and baffles and toggles all the switches in your head from "This is sane" to "This is ludicrous!" They say Disco is even getting healthy enough to leave the Lenox Hill Hospital and return to his family on Tuesday. They say Disco is alive and good as new.

You know what I say?

What I Say

I say: Where the hell was disco if he wasn't neutralized? For God's sake, I even remember the night we killed Disco. September 19th, 1981. The guys got together at the old field with a case of brews and devious idea. We would break the window of Disco's modest two-story Ranch-style house with Maxwell's silver sledgehammer and jump Disco before Disco would even know what hit him. And it all went off without a hitch. We smashed the window, opened the front door and came swarming in before Disco could even boogie out of bed. We cornered that sucker and punched and kicked and tickled him until he laughed himself unconscious.

With the grim atmosphere of history, we proceeded to take Disco out to the old quarry and bludgeoned him to death with Sex Pistols LPs. Just to make sure, we slit Disco's wrists, lit Disco's head on fire, and dropped a 500 pound anvil on him. Once all was said and dead, we threw the body into the discotheque just before opening hours and went out for some victory P.B.R.'s.

But no, no no no no nooooooo. Now Disco has to be alive again! I don't get it! Was it reincarnation or something, because I distinctly remember being there in the morning when they found the body. I even followed the ambulance to the hospital, then tracked the body into the morgue and watched them toss it into the incinerator, gather up the ashes and stuff them into an urn that I now keep on my mantle. How the hell is Disco alive? He's right there on my mantle!

After Disco died, people kept talking about how the "spirit of Disco" still lived on and watched over them, and all that bullshit. But we took care of that too, we took care of everything. We even killed Barry White!

Why We Killed Barry White

Goodnight, sweet prince. God rest his Philadelphia soul.

We had to kill Barry White. He was the final piece in the puzzle. Once he bit into his last McDonald's Ribwich, people stopped talking about the "spirit of Disco," and all that bullshit, once and for all. People finally accepted Disco's death, only for him to be totally, completely alive less than a decade later. Could you believe it?

None of us wanted to kill Barry White, but we knew it had to be done. The man crossed a line that should have never been crossed when he wrote "You're My First, My Last, My Everything." But none of us wanted to do it. None of us wanted to do it, but we fucking did it, and God fucking damn us if we killed Barry White and Disco is alive right now! None of us wanted to fucking do it!

Hell, we LOVED Barry White. I would have never gotten married if it weren't for his crooning baritone complementing my sensuous thrusting that night in Bermuda, or that day in the Indian sweatshop, or that afternoon in the conductor's room on a speeding passenger train. We had an absolutely absurdly sexual honeymoon, and I owe it all to Barry White. I swear, you could listen to that man sing and no matter where you are, what ugly piece of trash you're leering at, you'll get an instant erection. I nearly cried my eyes out when I had to drive a railroad spike in his right eye and pour boiling tar into his ears. I nearly cried.

It Was All For Nothing

Disco thinks it's so cool, coming back from the dead like it's Jesus Fucking Christ. Who even wanted it back? Can you hear the sound of Bee Gees filling the air, or the sound of tassels brushing against bell-bottoms as people rush to buy the new Chic album from the Mom-and-Pop disco stores, then strap on some skates and head off to the roller rink? I can't hear a thing except the buzz of furious indignation. My furious indignation.

Maybe I do hear something, just a little something. The faint beat of a kick-drum hitting four times upon the floor far in the distance, the quiet squeal of a bedazzled Diva waking up after a decades-long hibernation. The deadly sounds of Disco's resurrection. But where is Barry White? Where is he, Disco??

Who wanted it back? Why is it back? Why is this awful thing happening to us all? No one can know for sure, but it probably has to do with the U.S. Government. They're always messing shit up in one way or another.

You have a very... fruitful imagination, Charles, but you were supposed to do your current events piece about the army's repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." I don't see how this touches upon that subject at all, and it seems awfully mean-spirited too (where did you learn that language?). Still, nice use of this week's vocabulary!